Nine Decades of Thai Musical Development through the Global Crisis

Abstract

This historical approach research aims to examined the development of “Thai Musical Play” from 1931-2022. For 9 decades that the middle classes have initiated cultural formation of Musical Play in response to their own groups, there are changes and improvements according to the crisis that arise in each era to maintain and preserve this entertainment culture. The researcher studied the evolution of Thai Musical Play along with significant phenomena of Thailand and Global to analyze the relationship and conflict in the integration of local and global culture by collecting the documents and observation.

The results from this qualitative research found that the global crisis affects the development of musical play which can be divided into 7 periods as follows: The Musical Pioneer by The Middle Class (1931-1952), The Cross-Media Integration in Musical Play (1953-1970), The Modern Drama Incubation in Musical Play (1971-1985), The Restoration and Identity Development of Musical Play (1986-2006), The Growth Period of Musical Play in Cultural Industries (2007-2012), The Identity formation & Cultural Inheritance of Musical Play (2013-2019) and The Deglobalization in Musical Play (2020-2022). In each Musical Play’s era, there are important factors including political, economic, social and cultural crisis, international relations, social conditions in each era and pandemic such as COVID-19. The continuity element of musical theatre development throughout nine decades is that the middle class has successively played both sender and receiver role and integrated the global culture with the local culture in order to adhere its own class to society while the most volatile communication element is the channel which flows to the global crisis’s pros and cons in each era.